Many people learn about classical music as kids, in piano lessons or choir, but drift away from it with time. Salon 97 is a San Francisco-based organization dedicated to making classical music accessible, inclusive and—most of all—fun to folks who might be ready to give it another try.
The unopened message stared at Wenmin Zhang like a dare.
Seven months ago, Zhang sat in his childhood home in Beijing and looked at a computer screen with his future on the line.
Good news meant that Zhang’s dream of joining a professional orchestra had come true. It meant jumping on a life-changing flight and taking residence in an apartment he already held more than 6,000 miles away in a city called Omaha.
Bad news meant no job, no flight and no Omaha. Worse, it meant the snide judgments of skeptical aunts and uncles would become his life’s narrative at age 27: that everything he’d done since the age of 5 to get to this point had been pointless. He had failed.
Zhang stared back at the message, afraid to open it.
You can “attend” a Detroit Symphony concert this Sunday, October 6.
Free Live Webcast:
Violinist Gil Shaham
Violinist Gil Shaham
Sunday, October 6 at 3 pm EDT (GMT-4) Find my time zone
Los Angeles 12 pm | New York 3 pm | Paris 9 pm
Gil Shaham
Legendary violinist Gil Shaham opens the DSO’s 2013-14 Classical season with the world premiere of Bright Sheng’s concerto for violin, “Let Fly.”
read program notes
Leonard Slatkin conductor
Gil Shaham violin
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV Russian Easter Overture
BRIGHT SHENG Let Fly, Concerto for Violin and Orchestra
(world premiere commission made possible through the generous support of The Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation)
RAVEL Rapsodie espagnole
RAVEL Pavane pour une infante défunte
RAVEL Suite No. 2 from Daphnis et Chloé
As FAR as I’m concerned, today’s Pop Music needs more Oboe Solos.
